Sayre makes its breaks to repeat as 11th Region baseball champion
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Sayre defeated Great Crossing 5-3 to win the 11th Region championship.
- Banks Heinrich pitched a complete game in the opening round and was MVP.
- Sayre will face Johnson Central at 8:30 p.m. June 4 at Legends Field.
Sayre’s players celebrated like they’d won their first 11th Region tournament.
The Spartans, ranked No. 6 in the state, faced a scrappy but barely above .500 Great Crossing squad in Thursday’s region final at George Rogers Clark High School.
They beat the Warhawks 5-3, locking up a state-tournament trip after Banks Heinrich scooped up a routine grounder for a force out at second base to end it.
But the victory — Sayre’s second straight in the 11th Region championship after previously going 0-for-forever — was anything but routine.
“We definitely didn’t catch a lot of breaks this week,” said Heinrich, who was named tournament MVP. “We had to make our own breaks. We had to come back in the last two games. We went up against (Lexington) Catholic and then immediately gave it up. We’ve been in a dogfight the entire tournament.”
Great Crossing, which entered postseason play with a losing record, was eager to bring another fight. It came in on its longest win streak of the season (four) and off a 12-8 stunner over No. 23 Henry Clay, to whom Sayre lost in the 42nd District tournament. The Warhawks were positioned for a bigger upset after a ground-rule double by Landen Walters put ’em up 3-1 through five frames.
“Their pitcher did a really good job of keeping us off balance,” Sayre coach Kevin Clary said. “He would throw curveballs in fastball counts, breaking in the opposite of the way he does things. My hat’s off to him.”
Sayre worked through the order twice before it finally got momentum against Warhawks starter Collier Curtis in the top of the sixth.
The Spartans (26-9) started the inning with a flyout, but Joaquin Acevedo followed that up with a single to center field. He advanced on a walk drawn by Will Johnson. They both advance a base on a balk soon after.
Camden “Chip” Stout sent a low hanger into left field to score Acevedo, then Grady LaMonica put another into left to tie the game at 3-3. Chase Little relieved Curtis but walked Sayre’s Cole Tackett to load the bases. Gary Gibson capitalized with a long RBI sacrifice fly, again to left field.
Little then hit the next Sayre batter, Elliot Jansky, before issuing another RBI walk, this time to Heinrich. Colton Warren relieved Little and shut down Sayre’s offense the rest of the way.
But Sayre had done enough to grind its way back to the throne.
“We overcame a really well-coached team,” Clary said. “ … We lost 12 seniors from last year’s team and people thought this was gonna be a rebuilding year for the Spartans. They proved ’em wrong.”
Clary might have overstated the doubts, a bit, since the Spartans ranked as the No. 4 team in the state this preseason by PrepBaseballReport.com.
Heinrich’s MVP performance included pitching the distance in Sayre’s 2-1 win over 43rd District champ Lexington Catholic in the opening round, fanning six and allowing just two hits. He was 2 for 4 at the plate in the Spartans’ 5-4 nail-biter against Madison Central on Wednesday. Though he had only two hits in the tournament, he still managed one RBI in each game.
“I definitely pitched a lot better than I hit in this tournament, and I couldn’t have pitched as well as I did if I didn’t have a nice defense behind me,” Heinrich said. “ … I love ’em all.”
Curtis Collier threw the first five innings for Sayre, ringing up five batters along the way. Great Crossing chased Sayre reliever Noah Pendland, who held the Warhawks without a hit in 1⅓ innings but walked a batter and then immediately hit the next one after a mound visit in the bottom of the seventh.
Stout, a senior who’s thrown meaningful innings for Sayre in the 11th Region tournament since he was a freshman, relieved Pendland and retired the final two batters.
“They’re way better than their record showed, that team was good, they gave us a scare,” Stout said. “I think that experience in past big games helped me a lot, and I think that lefty freshman (Pendland) out there is going to be just like me when the time comes his senior year. He did a great job tonight.”
Surprise run to the final for Great Crossing
The Warhawks were in the 11th Region final for the second time in the program’s short history. Their 2023 team had a much stronger record (24-13) “had a lot more talent and a lot more depth” than this edition, Warhawks head coach Gary Stratton said.
That team upset Sayre, that year’s All “A” Classic champion, in the semifinals before falling in a tight one against Lexington Catholic.
“Nobody expected us to be anywhere near where we are,” said Stratton, who’s been the school’s baseball coach since it opened in 2019. “We just got things put together right there at the end and this bunch we pulled together started playing for each other, started working for it. That’s what got us to where we are now.”
Looking toward the state tournament
Sayre entered last season’s state tournament among the favorites to make a deep run but lost to Taylor County in the first round. The Spartans led 6-5 going into the bottom of the seventh.
This year they’ll get Johnson Central, an 11-8 winner over Paintsville in the 15th Region title game, to open state play. It’ll be their second meeting in less than a month: Sayre took down the Golden Eagles 11-0 in five innings during the Fayette County Invitational on May 9.
That score might make Sayre appear as even more of a favorite this year than last despite its ample turnover. Its focus must quickly turn from hard-earned jubilation to renewed motivation in order to avoid another one-and-done trip.
“Last year I think our team got a little bit complacent because we had never won a region championship before and so it was such a big milestone,” Heinrich said. “And it still is, it’s huge to win a region championship. But I think the difference is all the seniors on the team right now have experienced winning a region, and they want to taste something different, y’know?”
11th Region All-Tournament Team
Sayre: Banks Heinrich (MVP), Joaquin Acevedo, Elliot Jansky, Will Johnson; Great Crossing: Collier Curtis, Parker Covington, Landen Walters; Henry Clay: Luke Jackson, J.T. Ritchie; Madison Central: Tielor Howie, Lucas Ward; Frankfort: Will Beshear; Lafayette: Zach Eversole; Lexington Catholic: Eamon Hughes; Madison Southern: Aaron Short.
KHSAA Baseball State Tournament
First round: Sayre (26-9) vs. Johnson Central (32-8).
Where: Legends Field (Lexington).
When: 8:30 p.m. June 4.
This story was originally published May 29, 2026 at 1:16 AM.